The lacings of our democracy are knotted and as we bend our nails picking at them, our favorite entertainment seems to be murder mysteries, true crime dramas or concussive sports.

Bicycling and raising children are back in fashion, and even a spectrum of “mindfulness.” So it’s not all sonics, automatons and the blogosphere.

The following is excerpted from an essay written in 1973 by the author and taken from his soon-to-be-released collection of nature essays published by Lyons Press.

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. Edward Hoagland will speak at the Vineyard Haven Public Library about his 60 years of writing. Mr. Hoagland lives for most of the year in Edgartown and is one of the nation’s most celebrated essayists. He has written more than 20 books, both fiction and nonfiction, received two Guggenheim Fellowships, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011. His 2011 book, Sex and the River Styx, won the John Burroughs Medal. His latest book is Alaskan Travels.